Truth be told, I only stumbled upon this manga when looking through Mikazuki Suu's, one of my favourite mangaka out there,list of works. I had zero expectations of this manga, seeing that this was one of his earlier works. Rather frankly, I was pleasantly surprised, and not only that, this has become my favourite manga of all time. Not even one of my favourites, but my FAVOURITE, despite there being the stereotypical wimp of a slumping good for nothing high school student as a protagonist that goes by the name of Shinya.

STORY: Now, how the story progresses is what makes this manga truly a masterpiece. This manga, unlike many of the other battle-type mixed with shounen love comedy harem manga/anime, has a rather sustained balance between the development of the battle-type and fighting elements, at the same time love interest between the characters blossoms and can take full form. Another selling point of this manga is that the love interest of characters, and the fighting elements are largely in a synergistic relationship, which are often separated in other manga/anime I've come across.

Part of the progress in the story is the large, fluctuating and immense plot twists and turns taken.Many a time, this manga has made me go "what the actual heck!!??" at the rather peculiar, largely unexpected and totally unforeseen developments it decides to take. I would sit there, and realize, that whatever has transcended is the worst possible turn taken for the protagonist, making this extremely entertaining and engaging for the readers.
I can never predict what was going to happen next, and most of the time, many of these developments have rather bad consequences, or good outcomes that come at a cost. This also another selling point of the manga, not everything that happens can be predicted, and not every end to a matter would be good, for our dear protagonist, Shinya.

Lastly, this manga, has already ended. Meaning, it has its final climax, the epitome of everything this manga has to offer, and gives it to the reader. Also meaning, that the story has an eventual sense of direction! The end of this manga, in my opinion, cannot be described in words. It is perhaps the most beautiful of endings I have ever seen(not that I have seen that many manga endings, but yeah). All i can say is, the ending of the manga is beautiful, serene, timeless, priceless, precious, breath-taking, goose-bumping, and that does not even BEGIN to describe how much I LOVED the ending, and absolutely AWESOME it is.

CHARACTERS: Now, let's move on to the characters. My ammo of adjectives are locked and loaded, and ready to fire at any time. Let's begin with Shinya, our beloved protagonist. For a protagonist, he is rather stereotypical a character. Truth be told, he is a wimpy, slumping, shy, meek, unneeded, unwanted, pathetic, spineless, cowardly, unintelligent, unfit, downright useless and a complete and total waste of space, who is a disgrace to those you call anime characters, that is better off disappearing from the face of the Earth for the better of all humanity(took that a little too far, don't take it to heart; I would henceforth abstain from the excessive usage of adjectives upon male characters of this particular characterization). Therefore, in all essence, Shinya is what I would like to describe as a wump, a mix of the words wimp and slump. I only created this word for the sole purpose of describing male characters such as Shinya. For which at this point in time have used up all my ammo of adjectives, simply because they are only reserved for stereotypical male protagonists, like our dearly beloved Shinya over here.

However, throughout the story, he has shown immense development in his character. Gone are the days would he just watch from the sidelines while others do the work, this time he would be out in the front-lines battling it out. Shinya has evolved quite tremondously, to become quite the person of character, to the point he can even say rather witty and courageous things. At the end of the manga, Shinya would no longer be that wump of a stereotypical, god-awful male protagonist, but that of a rather likeable, at times reliable, person. Though he is still a wump.

Haruna, is probably the only other character I would describe. If you take your first look at Haruna, you would know immediately, that she is the stereotypical female shounen weakling, with a meek, gentle, unassuming demeanour, and in all actuality is extremely frail, fragile, peace-loving, attributing to what many feel to be annoying(what do you know, I still had some ammo left). However, Haruna, in my opinion, is different from all those other stereotypical shounen female weaklings. Her choices and decisions that she made, that have eventual revelation, has made her appear to be one of the stronger characters in the manga, and perhaps even the most compassionate one(I only used "strong" and "compassionate", though i could have used other adjectives, those would be spoiling the story). Thus, her actions she has undertaken would completely and utterly overwhelm all the aforementioned shortcomings she has, taking her out of the generalization of a weak and irritating character, to a character worthy and deserving of respect, at least in my book.

Although I am not sure if this would fit under the "characters" section of a review, I shall just put it down here anyway. I'd like to divide shounen love comedy manga/anime into two categories-namely the harem type, and the couple type. This manga is rather evidently a couple type of shounen love comedy, although it has some haremic(word doesn't exist, think harem in the form of an adjective) elements to it as well. Generally, couple-type love interest is more suited for infusion with battle-type elements, for which it makes things less complicated, and frankly easier to follow.

THEMES: One of the more evident themes is that of betrayal, which is often repeated many times throughout the series. Perhaps it is because of the tumultuous and unforeseen betrayals and happenings that make the manga altogether more enjoyable. I cannot dive any further without spoiling the story, so I shall end there.

The other recurring theme in this manga is also self-sacrifice, which once again, I shall not dwell upon too much lest I end up spoiling the story. However, I must point out. What makes a masterpiece, a masterpiece, at least in my book, is the mangaka's portrayal, usage and manipulation of the themes used in their manga. More noble themes like self-sacrifice, must have an accurate and powerful portrayal, but at the same time not to over-emphasize and over-use the theme, to the point where the theme itself is being used to cover up the many plot holes and back stories. That is being cliché, unwise, and showing a general loss of where to take the manga's direction to. In this manga, I personally felt that its themes were not overused, but in fact portrayed well enough, adequately and sufficiently. Thus, the feeling of appropriateness is there, when there is just enough of the thematic highlights and portrayals.

ART: I have rather mixed feelings about the art. The art, starts out rather terribly. Characters were disproportionate, their eyes and noses are misaligned, and there is the sense of incompetence in the mangaka's style. All of this was rather evident in the beginning of the manga. However, at the start of the manga there was also bits of the art which I thought was rather well done. For example, the highlighting of black clothing was realistic and beautiful. Not many manga can render black clothing all that well.

Later on in the manga, the artwork drastically improves. The characters are more proportionate, and they have a greater overall presence, without losing the mangaka's style of drawing. One of the things that I can garner from this manga, is that it not only shows the work of a mangaka, but it also indicates the mangaka's development of his drawing capabilities. Of which, quite evidently, has evolved and become uniquely his own.

Battle scene effects are also very well depicted. It is not the usual mess of slashes and inconceivable lines, but very beautifully and well-illustrated two pages of effects, highlighting the various characters' powers and such. That much, I can deeply appreciate.

The way that Minazuki Suu draws his male characters are also quite appealing. if anything, I am a straight guy, but I must really commend on how well he is able to depict males in his own stylization, they all have extremely bad-ass appearances and presence, that look for superior from those of other manga/anime works.

The last detail I would comment on would be the characters' hairstyles. Among the male characters, a whole lot of them have very similar hair. This makes it at times difficult to distinguish between the many male characters, especially the black haired ones. However, the white haired males, as well as most of the females, have extremely well drawn hair tufts, that make the characters, quite blatantly, very good looking.

SHORTCOMINGS: Yes, even this manga, my absolute favourite manga in the whole world, has its shortcomings. Halfway through the manga there is a large disparity in timings, and can cause a whole lot of confusion. This would be explained later on in the manga, but it causes confusion nonetheless. Also, this manga may require some amount of patience to read, so be patient and read through it to thoroughly enjoy it.

Secondly, there is also a large disparity in the mood and atmosphere across different venues. At one time, they main characters would be battling it out in some hopeless fight, and in the next chapter they would be in the main character's house, doing nothing and just horsing around. Its almost as if all the tension that had been built up in the initial conflict has completely dissipated, that all sense of danger is gone. This imbalance in mood may also cause some confusion among the readers.

Lastly, this shortcoming is true throughout various battle-type shounen with love comedy thrown into it. There is no proper explanation, of what their powers and abilities entail, no ranking, no class or level system. No benchmark to gauge their power against. They basically throw at you, this character has this particular power, while that character has his own particular power, put us against each other and who would win? These kind of situations are acceptable actually, because of the actual difficulty of creating such a system of powers and such.

CONCLUSION: Overall, this is my favourite manga of all time. Its comedic and tragic at the same time, unpredictable and generally a really fun ride. Like I said, the manga's ending, is absolutely priceless. I sincerely hope that you would pick up this manga, and perhaps enjoy it as much as I have.